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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT. 


ADDRESS BY F. S. SPRUILL 


OF ROCKY MOUNT,N. C., BAR 


ACCEPTANCE BY JUDGE H. G. CONNOR 
AT 


RALEIGH, N. C., JANUARY 18, 1915 


a 








PRESENTATION OF PORTRAIT 


OF 


HONORABLE ASA BIGGS 


UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 


ADDRESS BY F.S. SPRUILL 


OF ROCKY MOUNT,N.C., BAR 


ACCEPTANCE BY JUDGE H. G. CONNOR 


AT 


RALEIGH, N. C., JANUARY 18, 1915 


A 


6) Es SD hie 


RALEIGH 
E.M. UZZELL & CO., PRINTERS AND BINDERS 
1915 





ADDRESS OF F. S. SPRUILL 


May it Please Your Honor, and You, Ladies and Gentlemen: 


I have been commissioned by the partiality of the descend- 
ants and members of the family of Hon. Asa Biggs, one time 
Judge of this Honorable Court, to present to the Court, to be 
hung upon the walls of the courtroom, the portrait of that dis- 
tinguished man, and to speak a few words concerning his high 
_ career and great achievements. I have undertaken the perform- 
ance of this most pleasing task with cheerful alacrity because of 
the richness of my theme, but with much diftidence and distrust 
of my ability to meet the expectations of my overpartial friends. 

It is a custom, much to be commended, and one that seems to 
be growing in the State, to hang upon the walls of the buildings 
in which they performed their greatest deeds the portraits of the 
men who have made our history immortal. They serve to re- 
mind us, not of the fleeting shortness of life, but of the illimit- 
able vastness of opportunity. They preserve in pictorial form 
the history and traditions of our proud old Commonwealth. 
They inspire us with the ambition, like their originals, to leave 
our footprints on the shores of time. 

Occasionally, in the history of a State or people, a public man 
arises and passes out who is bigger in actual life than the 
panegyrist or biographer can make him after death. The re- 
verse of the proposition is the general rule, but when it does so 
happen that the man himself is bigger than his shadow, it is 
either not observed at all, or, if observed, it is after the passing 
of many years, and when the searching eye of the historian 
begins to scrutinize the records in the search for truth. 

There are few North Carolinians, even of her scholars, who 
know that the man whose portrait is about to be presented to 
this Court had, without solicitation on his part and with distin- 
guished ability, before he was fifty years of age, filled nearly 
every office in the gift of the people of his State. There are 
fewer yet who know the high courage and the serene faith with 
which he met the many cares, responsibilities, and vicissitudes 
of the high offices to which he was called; and how always the 


‘ 


4 


measure of his conduct was his conscience, enlightened by studi- 
ous thought and by constant appeals for guidance to the fountain 
of all wisdom. ; 

It is the purpose of this paper to acquaint posterity with some 
of the virtues, and to narrate some of the attainments, of this 
modest Christian gentleman. 

A consideration of the traits, characteristics, ideals, standards 
of conduct, and even forms of expression, of the two men dis- 
covers a striking resemblance between Judge Asa Biggs and 
Hon. Nathaniel Macon. There was much of the Roman in 
them both. They had the same simplicity of manner, the same 
sturdy independence of thought, the same rugged honesty, the 
same tenacity of purpose, the same direct way of phrasing their 
thoughts, the same hatred of all shams and frauds, and the same 
stern civic.righteousness. Each was a passionate lover of the 
State of his birth, and a believer in his heart of hearts that 
North Carolina skies were a little bluer, and North Carolina air 
a bit wholesomer, and North Carolina people a shade more 
patriotic, than were the skies and air and people of any other 
State in the Union. So when the time came that Judge Biggs 
regarded it as essential to his self-respect as a lawyer to leave 
North Carolina and begin the practice in another State, as will 
hereinafter be set forth, it cost him a mighty wrench to go. 
Hardly a year before his death, he wrote in his direct, simple 
way: “Nothing ever gave me more pain than my removal from 
North Carolina in 1869.” And then, as if unwilling to have 
the people, who had so signally honored and trusted him, un- 
informed as to why he had cast his lot in Virginia, he goes on to 
say: “My excuse is that the tyranny to me of ‘the powers that 
be’ was so humiliating, and the duty to my family to provide for 
them an honest livelihood was so pressing, that I could not 
patiently submit, and I sought a quiet and, as I hoped, a secure 
retreat from the turmoil.” He was referring to the conduct of 
the Supreme Court in attempting to disbar that distinguished 
roll of lawyers of the State (he being one of them) who had 
made their “solemn protest against judicial interference in 
political affairs.” Other practitioners might answer the rule 
served upon them and purge themselves of the alleged contempt 
by apologizing and paying cost, but to this old Roman, conscious 


Or 


of the rectitude of his own purpose and knowing that he was well 
within his rights as a lawyer and as a man, it was impossible to 


“Let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp, 
‘And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee 
That thrift may follow fawning.” 


And so he expatriated himself and kept his manhood intact. 
In his address to the people of North Carolina, elicited from 
him in December, 1873, at Norfolk, by a cruel and unfounded 
aspersion upon the conduct of his firm on the part of the then 
Chief Justice, in a few, short, manly, trenchant sentences, he 
tells his former fellow-citizens, and posterity, the reasons for his 
act in expatriating himself. Hear him: “I assumed the ground, 
and adhered to it, that the ‘Protest’ was right im itself; that it 
was a duty of the Bar to aid, if possible, in saving the Judiciary 
in the future from degradation and contempt; and that this was 
an attempt, on the part of the Court, to stifle and silence one of 
the great elements of public opinion, and to assume and practice 
judicial tyranny, that was intolerable. I positively declined to 
sign any paper which might be construed into an apology for an 
act which I believed was right and commendable, and which the 
Court had no power or right to treat as a ‘contempt,’ and in this 
manner disbar and silence in the courts the members of our noble 
and conservative profession.” Truly, this man was “not a pipe 
for fortune’s finger to sound what stop she please.” 

Asa Biggs was born February 4, 1811, in the little town of 
Williamston, on the banks of the Roanoke River, in Martin 
County. His father, Joseph Biggs, was a small inerchant in the 
town, and, according to a not unusual custom of the religious 
denomination of which he was a member, of uniting the secular 
and the religious, was also a preacher of the Primitive Baptist 
Church. He was three times married, and Asa, the subject of 
this sketch, was the second child of the third marriage, there 
being five children of that marriage, towit, four boys and one 
girl. Joseph Biggs, while himself of limited learning, was a 
warm friend of education, and it was mainly due to his exertions 
and enthusiasm that the academy at Williamston was estab- 
lished about 1820. The son, Asa, bears testimony to the charac- 
ter of the father, in a document addressed to his children and 
written nearly one-half century later, in the followimg words: 


2 


“He gave to us all the elements of education to the utmost of his 
ability, and moral precepts and examples which have survived 
him, and can enable me to say with truth: ‘No better parent 
ever lived than your grandfather.’ ” 

At this academy at Williamston, Asa received his educational 
advantages and attained great proficiency in the classical studies. 
He was a robust, vigorous boy of good mind and clean habits, 
and was fired with a laudable ambition to raise himself out of 
the ruck of the ordinary village boy. He grew rapidly and at 
the age of 15 was of man’s stature, weighing 180 pounds. At 
this age the boy, who had planned for himself a commercial 
career, left school and began his preparation for the life and 
career he had at that time chosen. He entered the mercantile 
establishment of a Mr. Martin, a merchant in Washington, in 
the capacity of a clerk. The compensation is not known, but a 
year later, in 1826, he had evidently improved his condition, for 
he went to Hamilton as a clerk for a Mr. Edwards, a merchant 
of that place. In June, 1827, while only 17 years of age, he was 
engaged by Mr. Henry Williams, of Williamston, to superintend 
his mercantile business at that place, under a contract to receive 
as compensation one-third of the net profits of the business. 
This arrangement continued for two years. These incidents are 
set out in detail merely as prophecies of what the man’s future 
contained. While yet a lad of 17, he had so impressed himself 
upon the people among whom he had grown up that he was ~ 
intrusted with the supervision of a considerable business. He 
made the business succeed, and then his mental horizon widened 
and his vision extended. The lad was beginning to come into 
his own. He was fired with the ambition to be a lawyer—not a 
pettifogger, but a real lawyer, wise and learned, and, above all, 
greatly trusted. His sense of exact justice would not permit him 
to retain the position of superintendent of his employer’s busi- 
ness while the main purpose of his life was something else, and 
he gave up this position and took a clerk’s place at a much 
smaller compensation so that he might prosecute his studies. 
He had no legal instruction and his education was limited, but 
diligently, earnestly, and faithfully he read and studied and 
wrought tntil in July, 1831, when he was not yet 21 years old, 
he felt that he was equipped to stand the examination for license. 


~J 


He successfully passed the examination and was granted license 
by Judges Henderson and Hall to practice in the County Courts. 

Here, for the purpose of this paper, his career may be re- 
garded as begun. At his first court, held a few days after he was 
licensed, he tells us in his autobiography that he made $50, and 
with refreshing candor he adds: “I regarded this a good begin- 
ning, and it gave me great encouragement.” His maiden speech 
was an address to the grand jury of Pitt County, in August, 
1831, it being at that time the custom for the charge to the 
grand jury to be made by some member of the Bar, usually a 
young member. His early career as a lawyer does not differ 
greatly from that of the ordinary practitioner in the little 
country town, who has in him the elements of success. He says 
in his sketch of himself above referred to: “I commenced with 
a determination to succeed, if possible; attended the courts regu- 
larly, applied myself unremittingly to my studies, and gave dili- 
gent attention to any business confided to my care.” 

His practice grew as his reputation for assiduous attention to 
his business increased. He attended regularly the courts of 
Martin, Pitt, Bertie, and frequently Edgecombe, Greene, and 
Washington. His probity was of the sternest character, and 
early in life he was known to have inveterate hatred for all 
forms of sham and deceit. Of him it can be truly written: “In 
his heart there was no guile and his lips could not frame a lie.” 
He was of simple tastes, economical in his expenditures, and 
temperate in his habits, and so, although the emoluments from 
his profession were never very great (he states they never ex-’ 
ceeded $4,000 per year), they were ample for him to generously 
provide for the wants of his family and to lay by each year a 
little store for the storm and stress that were coming. 

On June 26, 1832, he was married in Bertie County to Miss 
Martha Elizabeth Andrews, a daughter of Henry Andrews and 
his wife, Elizabeth. By her there were born to him ten children, 
of whom two died in infancy, the other eight reaching practical 
maturity. Two sons, William, the father of Hon. J. Crawford 
Biggs (himself a lawyer of great attainments and honor, one 
time Judge of our Superior Court and now the honored Presi- 
dent of the State Bar Association, who tonight sits with us), and 
Henry, entered the Confederate Army while yet mere lads of 


. 


17 and 18. William became Captain of Company A, 17th Regi- 
ment, North Carolina Troops, having left the Junior Class at 
the University of North Carolina to join a company that left 
Williamston for the front on May 20, 1861, the very day the 
State seceded. Henry was killed at Appomattox on April 8, 
1865, the day before Lee surrendered. Strange irony of fate 
that he should have come through the war from the time of his 
enlistment to the day before it ended and be reserved for the 
final sacrifice. 

The fall of the Confederacy, in the ultimate success of which | 
Judge Biggs had unfalteringly believed, together with the death 
of his son, for a period almost crushed the brave spirit of the 
man, and but for his fortitude and his serene and steadfast faith 
in God and His infinite goodness, this would have been a most 
critical period in his life. Even as it was, the man’s heart was 
very sore, and, in an addendum to the sketch above referred to, 
bearing date July 8, 1865, he voices his great sorrow and declares 
his unshakable faith in the Infinite Goodness. Time and space 
alone prevent a transcript from that record, which, while the 
moan of an anguished heart, stricken to its profoundest depths, 
is still the utterance of a brave man, bowing in dignified sub- 
mission to the Omnipotent Hand that scourged him. 

Mr. Biggs was of an intensely religious nature. There is per- 
haps no more interesting or dramatic part of the engrossing nar- 
rative that he wrote for his children than that which deals with 
. his conversion and his religious experiences thereafter ensuing. 
In words that stir and arouse, he details the tremendous up- 
heaval of his soul when at length he became fully conscious of 
man’s fallen condition and utter inability, without Divine aid, 
to be saved. This seems the more remarkable for that he was a 
man of excellent morals, temperate in all his habits, charitable, 
of unsullied integrity, and conforming in his daily walk and 
conversation to the best traditions of Christian manhood, and 
yet so profound was his conviction of sin, so intense the strivings 
of his sin-sick soul, that one is almost moved to tears as he reads 
this strong man’s story of his struggles to attain the light. He 
was 40 years old when this crisis in his life came, and it was so 
realistic to him, so genuine, that it affected him physically to the 


9 


extent of actual disorder. He described the anguish and stress 
through which he passed during the several days he was seeking 
reconciliation, as “compared to an impenetrable overhanging 
cloud, ready to burst upon me in all its fury, and to sink me to 
everlasting despair and ruin; while I was anxiously looking for 
some ray of light, through the gloom, by which I might hope to 
escape the impending danger; but no glimmer could I discover. 
I felt, indeed, that I was a poor, miserable, and lost sinner; 
condemned to punishment for my iniquities; and my cry was, 
‘Lord! save or I perish.’ All my moral rectitude did not avail 
me. I could see nothing to extricate me from this awful 
dilemma. My intense suffering forced me to cry out in despair, 
and I really concluded that I was going deranged, and frequently 
asked, ‘Am I losing my mind?’ During this deep distress all my 
sins and improprieties seemed to be brought before me, and I am 
reminded that I felt smcerely desirous to make friends with all 
those with whom I was not then on friendly terms, and felt will- 
ing to accommodate every difficulty I had ever had with my 
fellow-men. I was willing to obtain relief in any way, and from 
anybody, and readily attended the meetings with the hope of 
being relieved; yet my inclination was to seclude myself from 
observation and read and pray, and meditate in secret; and 
thus I was engaged the most of the time for several days. Noth- 
ing that was said or done appeared to soothe or console; I was 
unutterably miserable, and could find no solace or hope.” A 
strange experience truly for this conservative, thoughtful, quiet 
man! 

The narrative then proceeds with his description of the return 
of his composure and serenity. There was no sudden deliverance 
from his deep distress, but a gradual transition lasting through 
several days, from storm, mental disturbance, and profound mel- 
ancholy, to calm composure, peaceful serenity, and exuberant 
thanksgiving. Soon thereafter he was baptized, joined the 
Primitive Baptist Church, and, after a life of deep ‘piety, he 
died in full fellowship in that religious denomination. I have 
set out this phase of the man’s life somewhat at length because 
of the leading part he gives it in his autobiography, and further 
because, after its occurrence, it affected most profoundly his 
whole life and conduct. 


10 


The independence of thought of Mr. Biggs first manifested 
itself in the fixing of his political affiliations. His father, and 
indeed all of his forbears, were Whigs, and it would have seemed 
most natural for him to have entertained their views almost by 
heredity. Yet, when he reached manhood’s estate and was called 
upon to choose his political creed, he carefully studied the plat- 
forms and cardinal principles of the two leading parties. The 
attitude of the Democratic Party, upon the great question of the 
Tariff as a National issue and of manhood suffrage as a State 
issue, appealed to him as eternally just and right; and so, in the 
face of family and friends, he openly proclaimed himself a 
Democrat. This is the more remarkable and is high proof of 
his sincerity for the reason that the Democratic Party was then 
the minority party in the State and district. This did not seem 
to weigh with him or influence him. His political career is pic- 
turesque and unique in that he never sought but one office, and 
yet he held at various times almost every office in the people’s 
gift. 

Tn 1835, when he was only 24 years old, he was elected by the 
voters of Martin County a delegate to the Constitutional Con- 
vention, being the youngest member of that dignified body. It 
was composed of the most learned, experienced, and talented men 
in the State, and young Biggs, feeling his youth and imexperi- 
ence, and following the inclination of his fast ripening judg- 
ment, during that session participated in no debate, but listened 
attentively and carefully to the debates engaged in by the best 
equipped orators and debaters in the State. This experience 
was of untold service to him in his after life. 

The colleague of Mr. Biggs in that convention was Jesse 
Cooper, who for many years had represented the county in the 
General Assembly. Many grave and important measures were 
proposed and discussed. The one which elicited most prolonged 
consideration was the proposition to amend the Constitution im 
respect ofthe right of Roman Catholics to hold office. 

In 1840, again without solicitation, he was nominated and 
elected a member of the House of Commons and was reélected 
in 1842. By this time the man had “found himself,” and, hav- 
ing decided convictions upon all public questions and the faculty 
of speaking what was in his mind in a plain, simple, and 


Hal 


straightforward manner, he became at once a leader of his party. 
He was an avowed friend of internal improvements, but the bit- 
ter, the inveterate enemy of extravagance and jobbery, no matter 
from whence it proceeded. In the canvass preceding the election 
of 1842, Mr. Biggs again showed his manly independence and 
his moral courage in opposition to what he believed to be a 
vicious custom. For many years it had been the custom of can- 
didates seeking the suffrages of the voters to indiscriminately 
“treat” every one who chose to participate. The-word “treat” 
is a colloquialism, and means to offer spirituous liquors to and 
to drink at your own expense with any and all persons invited. 
It is the term Mr. Biggs himself employed in his sketch above 
referred to. The custom was almost ancient and_ universal 
enough in the east to amount to common law. It was of course 
pernicious and debasing, but not even members of the Gospel 
theretofore nominated to office had been courageous enough to 
denounce it. Im this campaign young Biggs boldly denounced 
the custom as injurious to the public morals, and as tending 
toward the destruction of civic righteousness. He unqualifiedly 
refused to follow the custom, and, although his friends warned 
him that it would defeat him, and his enemies circulated all 
manner of false reports concerning him, he avowed his purpose 
to go down to defeat with honor rather than to win victory by 
means which his judgment disapproved and his conscience con- 
demned. Be it said to the credit of the people of his county, he 
was triumphantly elected. 

In 1844 he was nominated to the State Senate and was 
opposed by his old friend and colleague, Mr. Jesse Cooper, and 
also by a prominent Whig nominee. Mr. Cooper’s candidacy 
was independent and his platform was opposition to nominating 
conventions that had just come into vogue in the east. This split 
in the Democratic ranks, especially with Jesse Cooper leading 
the bolters, was a serious matter for young Biggs. He had not 
sought the nomination, but, having put his hand to the plow, he 
could not afford to look back. Without appealing in any wise 
to the passions of the voters, fairly and temperately, Mr. Biggs 
presented his views and argued his principles. Again he was 
triumphantly elected, obtaining a handsome majority over both 
opponents. Thus he was transferred to a new theater of action 


12 


as a State Senator, a body equally divided in voting strength 
and composed of able, experienced men and adroit politicians. 
Without pyrotechnics, and fearlessly, he discharged his duty 
with fidelity to the party of which he was a member, but always 
with an eye single to the best interests of the State. 

And now follows the incident in the career of Mr. Biggs which - 
proves how the plans of politicians may be utterly confounded 
by an underestimate of the knowledge of the voters. In 1842 
the county of. Martin had been attached to the Ninth Congres- 
sional District. Theretofore it had had no political relations at 
all with any county im the district except Bertie. The district 
was overwhelmingly Whig in its politics, having in the previous 
election given a large majority for the Whig candidate. Late in 
the Spring of 1845 the Democratic District Convention was held 
in the extreme eastern end of the district. Martin County was 
not represented, and Mr. Biggs, forgetful even of the date of the 
convention, was busy in the discharge of his professional duties. 
The convention, without his knowledge, nominated him as the 
candidate for Congress for that district and adjourned sine die, 
the delegates going home. Mr. Biggs’ first knowledge of the 
action of the convention came from the committee appointed to 
notify him. Against him, the Whigs had nominated Col. David 
Outlaw, a distinguished lawyer and a gentleman of great talent 
and worth, from Bertie County. In most of the counties Mr. | 
Biggs was personally unacquainted, while Colonel Outlaw, who 
had theretofore represented the district in Congress, was widely 
and most favorably known. To accept the nomination appar- 
ently meant defeat; not to accept it meant an open exhibition of 
fear of that defeat. Mr. Biggs kept the matter under considera- 
tion for a week, and finally, feeling it was his duty to go where . 
his party ordered, accepted the nomination and entered the 
campaign. The party issues were discussed in joint debate by 
the two candidates. Except for one notable instance, there has 
been perhaps no campaign in the State conducted with greater 
dignity and circumspection than was this one. While the dis- 
tinguished debaters did not spare each other’s political positions 
or arguments, yet they maintained their social intercourse and 
friendship unimpaired, and the personal respect and esteem of 
the two men for each other was increased rather than dimin- 


13 


ished. It is not necessary to advert to the divergent views of the 
two men. Each stood for the best in his respective party. The 
burning questions of that day and time have for the most part, 
in regular recurring cycles, become the burning questions of 
other times and eras. The tariff, the currency, the distribution 
of public lands, the Nation’s attitude to the merchant marine, 
engrossed the attention of the public, and furnished abundant 
matter for wide divergence of opinion. Mr. Biggs was an ortho- 
dox partisan of the Democratic school, and Colonel Outlaw 
equally orthodox of the Whig faith. Both were well equipped, 
of clean personal life, and both broad enough to give and take 
like gladiators in the battle in which they were engaged. The 
election was very close, and Mr. Biggs was chosen by the narrow 
majority of 146 yotes in a district of 10,000 voters. The one 
incident of the campaign that marked Mr. Biggs as being a 
statesman and not a politician was his refusal to temporize where 
principle was involved. In some of the counties of the district 
the electors were strongly committed to certain measures not in 
line with the party’s principles. In these counties the friends 
of Mr. Biggs earnestly urged him to follow the injunction of 
St. Paul and “be all things to all men,” but this man refused 
“to trim his sails to every favoring breeze,” and boldly and 
almost defiantly proclaimed his party’s creed and declared his 
unalterable purpose, if elected, to support that creed by speech 
and yote in the halls of Congress. This course may have lost 
him some votes in some of the counties; certainly it increased 
the respect for and confidence in the man who thus proved that 
he held principle higher than temporal advantage. 

During his first term in the lower branch of the United States 
Congress Mr. Biggs, though only 34 years of age, so impressed 
himself on his colleagues, among whom were David S. Reid, 
afterwards Governor of the State, and Mr. Dobbin, afterwards 
Secretary of the Navy, that he was at once regarded as a leader. 
It is not perhaps generally known that he precipitated the con- 
troversy resulting in the unexpected resignation of Mr. Haywood 
from the United States Senate. Mr. Biggs, while a member of 
the Legislature, had assisted in securing the election of Mr. Hay- 
wood. The House of Representatives passed a bill to modify the 
tariff, for which Mr. Biggs and the entire Democratic Party had 


14 


voted. The vote was so close in the Senate that the issue was in 
grave doubt. As the time for taking the vote in the Senate 
approached, it was rumored that Mr. Haywood was opposed to 
and would vote against the measure. Mr. Biggs proposed to the 
Democratic members of the House from North Carolina that 
they should call upon Mr. Haywood and remonstrate with him. 
They declined to do it, for the reason that none of them had been 
in any wise responsible for his election. Mr. Biggs then sought 
an interview with Mr. Haywood, and an animated and exciting 
colloquy occurred between the two men at the door of the Senate 
Chamber. Shortly afterwards, during the same day, Mr. Hay- 
wood, apparently impressed with the view urged by Mr. Biggs 
that he had no right, while occupying a seat as a Democrat, to 
antagonize Democratic measures, resigned his seat in the Senate, 
which placed the fate of the bill in still graver doubt. Fully 
impressed with the sense of his public duty and feeling sensibly 
the tenseness of the situation, Mr. Biggs, on the next day, in the 
House publicly denounced Mr. Haywood’s conduct. It is not 
improper to add that Mr. Haywood was generally condemned by 
his party in the State for his course and never recovered his 
political prestige or standing. 

At the commencement of the short session in 1846 Mr. Biggs 
wrote to the leading men throughout his district, declining to run 
again and requesting that steps be taken in time to secure some 
other suitable candidate. There was universal dissent, and no 
course was left open to him but to either make the race a second 
time or incur the disapproval of his warmest and most valued 
personal friends. Again, therefore, in 1847, Colonel Outlaw 
was his opponent, and a joint canvass was again had between 
them. The Mexican War and its incidents were the only issues 
discussed. For the first and only time in his whole career Mr. 
Biggs tasted the bitterness of political defeat. Colonel Outlaw 
was elected by a majority of seven hundred and Mr. Biggs, to 
whom the defeat was not unexpected, felt that the time had 
come when he could honorably retire from public life and devote 
himself to his profession and to rearing and educating his large 
and growing family. He had of necessity lost his clientele and, 
being scrupulously honest, had come out of public office poorer 
than when he entered. 


15 


In 1848 he had a joint canvass as Presidential Elector with 
Edward Stanley. 

It was during this period of his life, while he was engaged in 
the arduous task of rebuilding his lost practice, that he under- 
went the religious experience which is above set out. 

In 1851, again without solicitation, he was appointed by Gov- 
ernor Reid, his old colleague in Congress, on a commission with 
Judge Saunders and Hon. B. F. Moore to revise and codify the 
statutes of North Carolina. This was a work eminently suited 
to his tastes and habits, and he undertook it with real pleasure. 
Almost at once Judge Saunders-resigned and the whole responsi- 
bility of the work rested upon Mr. Moore and Mr. Biggs. The 
commission was to report to the General Assembly of 1852, but 
it was soon found impracticable to complete the gigantic task 
within that time. The General Assembly of that year continued 
Mr. Moore and Mr. Biggs as the committee and authorized them 
to proceed, without electmg a successor to Judge Saunders. 
Their report was made to the General Assembly of 1854. The 
work is known as the Revised Code, and it stands as a lasting 
monument to the legal ability, the profound research, and the 
unlimited pains and care of its authors. It remained in force 
for nearly twenty years and until Battle’s Revisal substituted it. 
It is perhaps the most scientifically arranged and prepared of 
the several codifications of the State’s statutes. 

In 1854 Mr. Biggs was nominated and elected to the General 
’ Assembly from the district composed of Martin and Washington 
counties. He was induced to accept this nomination solely be- 
cause of his anxiety concerning the fate of the Code on which 
he and Mr. Moore had been engaged. The professional reputa- 
tion of himself and his colleague was involved in obtaining the 
consent of the Legislature to pass the Code just as they had pre- 
pared it. Knowing how liable it was to be marred and dis- 
jointed in its sequence and continuity by amendment, he was 
constrained to accept the nomination that in order, if elected, he 
might act as guardian of this Magnum Opus of his and of his 
colleague’s brain. In this the closest and most fiercely contested 
of his campaigns he was elected by only twenty-one votes major- 
ity in the district, Washington County being strongly Whig. 
He was successful in protecting his literary offspring from vio- 


16 


lence, if not from assault, and it was adopted practically as it 
left the hands of its authors. Mr. Biggs was the recognized 
Democratic leader in that Legislature, and Governor Graham 
was the Whig leader. 

The General Assembly of 1852 was the regular period for the 
election of one United States Senator, and the session of 1854 
for the election of the other. In consequence of the nearly equal 
division of parties in 1852, a contest arose between Mr. Dobbin, 
who was the regularly nominated candidate of the Demoeratie 
Party, and Judge Saunders, who opposed him, and the session 
terminated without an election. The election of two Senators 
was therefore thrown upon the Legislature of 1854, and of course 
excited much feeling and interest. Many names of high promi- 
nence were canvassed in the newspapers, and among a large 
number Mr. Biggs’ was mentioned. He did not reach Raleigh 
until the night before the session was to open, and then ascer- 
tained that active canvassing had been going on for a week by 
aspirants for these distinguished positions, and that his name 
was being generally discussed. It was evidently the desire of 
the members to decide these elections as early as practicable, and 
to that end a caucus of the Democratic Party was held on Tues- 
day night. He did not attend, although urged by some of his 
friends to do so, nor would he visit the members, as customary 
with others, feeling that it was a position not to be attained by 
personal solicitation. The session of the caucus was protracted, 
with the result that Mr. Biggs was nominated on the second bal- 
lot for the six years term and Governor Reid (then Governor) 
was nominated for the short term of four years. The other 
names voted for were Chief Justice Ruffin, General Clingman, 
and Burton Craig. On Thursday the election was held by the 
General Assembly and Mr. Biggs and Governor Reid were 
elected according to the nominations, which placed Mr. Biggs 
as the suecessor of Mr. Badger. Thus unsolicited on his part, 
at the age of 43, he was elevated to one of the most distinguished 
places in the gift of the State. 

His career as United States Senator was in keeping with all 
his former life. Conservative, without being overcautious; 
loyal, without being overpartisan; faithful in the discharge of 
his duties and heedfully attentive to the demands upon him by 


17 


his constituents, he made an acceptable and efficient Senator, 
meeting its high requirements, as was his wont, with simple dig- 
nity and manly bearing. 

_ At the second session, by reason of his record made at the first 
session, he was put on the Finance Committee, then, as now, the 
most important committee in the Senate. He was also a mem- 
ber of the Committee on Territories, which, on account of the 
Slavery question, was also one of the most important committees 
of the Senate. The records show that he took an important, 
even a leading, part in the debates which were then daily grow- 
ing in acrimony as the great impending struggle grew nearer and 
nearer. His speeches, while honest and with uncompromising 
clearness expressing his decided convictions as to States’ rights, 
are well worth perusal as models of self-restraint, and of con- 
servative, statesmanlike expressions upon the burning questions 
under consideration. 

In the winter of 1857-8 Judge Henry Potter, Judge of the 
United States District Court for North Carolina, who had been 
appointed by President Jefferson in May, 1801, died, and his 
successor was to be appointed. Judge Potter bears the unique 
distinction of having held judicial office for the longest consecu- 
tive period in the history of the United States. Incidentally he 
verified the aphorism that “few die and none resign.” President 
Buchanan, in May, 1858, appointed Senator Biggs as successor 
to Judge Potter, and the appointment was unanimously con- 
firmed by the Senate. In this connection it should again be 
noted that for this office Senator Biggs made no application. It 
was a rule of his life, rigidly adhered to, to solicit no office, and 
each and every honor and office, of the various positions held by 
him, came to him not only without solicitation on his part, but, 
in the majority of cases, without even former notice to him. 

Upon his appointment and confirmation as District Judge, he 
at once resigned his seat in the Senate, and began diligently to 
quality himself for the responsible duties of the Judgeship. The 
District Courts were held twice a year at Edenton, New Bern, 
and Wilmington, and the Circuit Court once a year at Raleigh. 
In the latter court the presiding Judge was one of the Associate 
Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge 
Wayne was assigned to this circuit. Judge Potter’s age and 


18 


ill-health had for many years made the United States Courts 
formal farces. Judge Biggs began at once the reorganization of 
the courts by the preparation and adoption of the necessary rules 
of practice and the appointment of the officers and clerks there- 
for. Until 1861 he held the District Courts regularly, and the 
business began to grow and accumulate. He also held unaided 
the Cireuit Courts at Raleigh until that date. In November, 
1860, at which time the political atmosphere was surcharged 
with excitement and the question of States’ rights had grown to 
the point that it overshadowed every other one, Judge Biggs, 
who was an ardent States’ rights man, had some correspondence 
with Judge Wayne in respect to the approaching Cireuit Court 
at Raleigh. From that correspondence he gathered that Judge 
Wayne denied the right of a State to secede from the Union. 
Inasmuch as Mr. Lincoln had then been elected President of the 
United States, and the excitement in the South had greatly in- 
creased, Judge Biggs thought it was not improbable that the 
question might become a practical one and present itself to the 
Court for adjudication. He apprehended that Justice Wayne, 
in his charge to the grand jury, might give publicity to his views 
on the question of States’ rights, and, inasmuch as he differed 
from Judge Wayne on the question “as far as the East is from 
the West,” he was at great pains to prepare and set down in 
writing a charge to the grand jury which he intended giving in 
case Judge Wayne were not present, or if, being present, he 
should leave to him, Biggs, the duty of charging the grand jury. 
He also prepared another charge, in the nature of a dissenting 
opinion, to be delivered in case Judge Wayne, in charging the 
grand jury himself, should declare against States’ rights. The 
performance of this disagreeable duty, as it was conceived by 
Judge Biggs, was rendered unnecessary by the excellent taste 
of Mr. Justice Wayne, who did not in the remotest way allude 
to the question which was then rending the States asunder. 
The matter has long since been settled by the arbitrament of 
war—the bloodiest, save the one now in progress, in the world’s 
history. Time and space forbid my incorporating into *this 
sketch those brave words of a.brave man. Let it suffice to say 
that in clear, trenchant sentences, Judge Biggs set out the doc- 
trine of States’ rights even to its logical conclusion of the right 


19 


to secede from the Union. Even at this distance of sixty-five 
years it seems not easy to answer his argument, and it is well 
that the question, no longer open to debate, is now simply a mat- 
ter for speculation and polemics. : 

The tension increased daily and the first low mutterings of the 
coming storm were heard. The election of Mr. Lincoln as a sec- 
tional candidate, with his avowed principles in favor of aboli- 
tion, and against the rights of the States, was to the South, 
already jealous to the point of hostility, almost equivalent to a 
declaration of war. The Gulf States had one by one seceded, 
and subsequently Virginia, and then North Carolina ranged 
themselves with their Southern sisters. 

The Legislature of North Carolina, in February, 1861, first 
submitted the question of a State Convention to the votes of the 
people, with a provision that if a majority of the voters should 
decide in favor of a convention, it was to assemble at once. To 
that end delegates to such convention were elected at the same 
time that the vote was taken on the convention itself. 

North Carolina by a small majority voted against the conven- 
tion, and the State, therefore, for the time being remained in the 
Union. Judge Biggs, with his advanced views on States’ rights, 
was avowedly and openly in favor of the convention, yet he 
retained his office as Judge, deeming it imprudent to resign until 
the State should secede, or until such controlling circumstances 
should oceur as would bring him to the conclusion that he could 
not longer hold the Judgeship consistently with honor or his 
duty to the State. 

Stirring events succeeded each other with amazing rapidity. 
The failure of the Peace Congress to compose the disagreements 
was followed by the President’s Proclamation of April, 1861. 
Immediately Judge Biggs realized that the time had come for 
him to act. From his home he wrote and sent to President Lin- 
coln the following communication, which is probably unique in 
the annals of resignation literature : 


Witiiamston, N. C., April 23, 1861. 

To Apranam LINCOLN, j 
President of United States. 

Sir :—I hereby resign my office of District Judge of the United 

States for the District of North Carolina, being unwilling to 


20 


longer hold a commission in a Government which has degener- 
ated into a military despotism. I subscribe myself yet a friend 
of constitutional liberty. Asa Biaés. 


No phrases of “distinguished consideration,” no ayowals of 
“obedient subserviency,” no expression of “profound respect”— 
plain and direct as the nature of the man who wrote it is the 
letter which retired to private life the man of many experiences 
and of varied official fortune. 

Another convention was called to convene on May 20, 1861, 
and an election for delegates was ordered for the 13th. Almost 
without opposition, Judge Biggs was elected the delegate from 
Martin County and was one of the leaders in the convention. 
On May 20th, the day the convention assembled, an ordinance 
of secession was unanimously adopted. 

On June 17, 1861, Judge Biggs was appointed by Jefferson 
Davis Judge of the District Court of the Provisional Govern- 
ment of the Confederate States for the District of North Caro- 
lina, and this appointment was confirmed by the Confederate 
Congress and a commission was issued and sent him on August 
13, 1861. Upon the formation of the permanent Government of 
the Confederate States, he was again appointed Judge of the 
District Court by President Davis, and a commission issued and 
sent him on April 15, 1862. In the Winter of 1861-2 he had 
resigned his seat in the convention, and so he took the oath of 
office as District Judge of the Confederate States before Judge 
Heath of the State Supreme Bench on May 27, 1862. This 
position he held until the surrender of Lee at Appomattox and 
the formal fall of the Confederacy. 

From this time forward, for several years, we have no record 
of Judge Biggs’ achievements. He began again as a practitioner 
at the Bar in Tarboro, N. C., and, in the troublous times sue- 
ceeding upon the surrender, and the beginning of our reconstruc- 
tion period, he bore his part bravely and without complaint. 

In the Spring of 1869 a number of the lawyers of North Caro- 
lina, among whom were the oldest, ablest, and most conservative 
members of the Bar, to avert what they regarded as an improper 
interference in political affairs by the Judges of the Supreme 
Court, prepared, signed, and published a “protest.” It was able, 
dignified, positive without being brusque, and direct without 


21 


being offensive. Judge Biggs was one of the signers of this docu- 
ment, and heartily sympathized with its objects and purpose. 

At the June Term of the Supreme Court following, a rule was 
served upon the signers to show cause why they should not be 
attached for contempt, or, to speak with greater accuracy, the 
signers of the “protest” were officially advised that they had put 
themselves in contempt, and that no man who had signed the 
“protest” could practice again in the Court until he first apolo- 
gized for his conduct and paid the cost of the proceeding. Some 
of the lawyers who signed that history-making document are yet 
living. The argument in support of the answer of the respond- 
ents to the rule was worthy of the three great lawyers who made 
it, but the Court adhered to its purpose, and no course was left 
open to the respondents but to comply with the Court’s require- 
ments or to retire from the practice in the State. 

Judge Biggs, who did nothing from impulse and who had 
weighed his act when he penned his name to that document, was 
not able to accommodate his conscience to the Court’s require- 
ments. Therefore, although he was nearly sixty years old and 
had lived his entire life among the people of North Carolina and 
loved his native State with a passionate intensity, he chose the 
hard alternative of expatriating himself rather than partake of 
this humiliating dish which was set before him. He moved to 
Norfolk, Virginia, and, with the energy of a boy and the courage 
for which he was distinguished, he began anew the practice of 
the law in that city. He formed a connection with his brother, 
Kader Biggs, im the commission business at Norfolk, under the 
firm name of Kader Biggs & Co., and about the same time he 
associated in the practice of law with Hon. W. N. H. Smith, 
afterwards Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of this State. 
He continued in the practice there, and likewise in the commis- 
sion ‘business, until his death, which occurred in the city of Nor- 
folk on Wednesday, March 6, 1878. During his residence of 
nine years in Norfolk his heart was always turning back to his 
native State, to the theater of his toils and triumphs, to the 
home of his youthful hopes and his manhood’s ambitions. 

In Judge Biggs were blended the simplicity of childhood and 
the wisdom of age. To a tireless industry was added fine dis- 
crimination and excellent learning; but the highest quality im 


22 


his well rounded character’was that without which all else would 
have been of no avail—he was possessed of an integrity unassail- 
able, and his honesty was without variableness or shadow of 
turning. Men loved him for his guileless simplicity, they re- 
spected him for his great gifts of mind and heart, but they 
revered and trusted him for his sturdy honesty and his inflexible 
integrity. ; 

It is'‘meet and proper, before closing: this sketch, that we note 
especially the rank and attainments of Judge Biggs as a lawyer. 
If genius be the capacity for infinite pains, then Judge Biggs 
had a high order of genius. He was tireless in his assiduity, 
relentless in his efforts to find the truth, and bold in his purpose 
to declare it. His professional career was as honorable as it was 
successful, and furnishes to us who come after him a worthy 
example for emulation. Patient, thorough, careful, faithful in 
the discharge of his professional obligations, it was but natural 
that his business should have increased until he was the leading 
lawyer in the tier of counties in which he practiced. Perhaps 
the most noteworthy thing in his arduous professional career was 
that, while he threw into his contests all the force and skill and 
ardor of which he was capable, he rarely if ever gave offense to 
his adversary. He retained to the end the affectionate regard 
and the unqualified respect of his brethren. 

And now may it please your Honor, my pleasant task is done. 
In the name of the descendants of Hon. Asa Biggs, who, like 
himself, have met the issues of life bravely and performed its 
duties with high success, I am commissioned to present to this 
Court this excellent portrait of one of the greatest of your prede-- 
cessors. It is their earnest wish that it may not only aid pos- 
terity to learn aright the history of the stirring times in which 
he lived and wrought, but also that it may inspire in the hearts 
of those who shall look upon the strong and composed features 
of the man there limned, a more abiding affection for the grand 
old State of his birth, that, even unto the end, he loved above all 
things else. 


ACCEPTANCE BY JUDGE CGONNOR. 


The duty which devolves upon me of accepting the portrait of 
Judge Asa Biggs, the first presented to this Court, is a valued 
privilege no less for personal than official reasons. Judge Biggs 
was in point of eminent service and public position the most dis- 
tinguished citizen of the State called to preside over this Court. 
That he preferred the less distinguished place and, usually, less 
attractive work, of the Bench to that of the United States Senate 
is convincing evidence of his devotion to his profession and the 
administration of justice. He brought to the discharge of its 
duties, not only a long and large experience at the Bar, and serv- 
ice to the State and Nation, so admirably and eloquently told in 
the inspiring story of his life by Mr. Spruill, but those high men- 
tal and moral qualities—loftiness of ideals, steadiness of purpose, 
courage of conviction, integrity of mind and heart, love of jus- 
tice, truth and equity, which are the essential attributes of the 
judicial office. We may well believe that when the occasion came 
for him to make the election, he was guided by the noble senti- 
ment of another of North Carolina’s great magistrates, when 
called upon to make a like decision—one with whom he had 
served in the Convention of 1835, and whom we are assured he, 
admired and trusted, although of different political faith, that 
the faithful performance of the duties of the judicial office are 
as important to the public welfare as any which it is in the power 
of the citizen to render; that to give a wholesome exposition of 
the laws, to administer justice with a steady hand and an upright 
purpose, are among the highest of civil functions, and that there 
was no better way in which he could serve his country. Con- 
trolled by this lofty ideal, guided by the learning which came 
from patient and persevering study, sustained by that source of 
wisdom which no less by his walk and conversation than by 
experience he gave evidence of having sought and found, he gave 
judgment without respect of persons—heard the small as well as 
the great, and in righteousness rendered to all who brought their 
causes before him, justice and equity; and this is the office of the 






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Judge. To those who are honored in bearing his 
inheriting his virtues, who have in this appropriat 
served and perpetuated his memory, we express, 
the Bar, and the people, our sincere thanks. T 
Judge Biggs will be so placed in our courtroom that 
draw inspiration from his life and be strengthened © 

charge of our duties by his example. 





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